Traditional international firms hire lawyers in the old colonial power to “capture” work where the colonial powers took advantage of the people and resources of the country. They cling to the outdated notion that it is still effective for a law firm to treat its own talent in a hierarchical, parochial, colonial and unequal way.
They believe one location should tell others what to do (hierarchical); they assume that high quality lawyers can only be found in the North and the West (parochial); they presume that lawyers in the North and the West should, by rights of history and tradition, take the lead in serving clients in other regions (colonial); and they operate on the principle that only a handful of offices should do high value work while others are treated as branch offices (unequal).
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— Joe Andrew, global chairman of Dentons, teeing off in The Lawyer on the traditional Biglaw model. He goes on to contrast that model with Dentons, calling attention to Dentons going with African firms to create a pan-African law firm owned and controlled by Africans.